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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Beginning June 1st, applications will be accepted for the MSF’s Brighter Tomorrow Grant and the Computer Grant. If you would like to apply for either grant, simply fill out our online application at http://www.msfocus.org, print an application, or call 888-673-6287 to receive an application by mail.

Applications will also be included in the summer 2010 issue of the MSFocus. By mail, completed applications can be sent to the MSF, BTG Committee, or Computer Grant Program at 6520 N. Andrews Ave., Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33309.

For further information on the Foundation’s grant programs, call our Program Services Department at 1-888-MSFOCUS or you can contact us by email: support@msfocus.org

Disclaimer: 'MS Views and News' (MSVN), does not endorse any products or services found on this blog. It is up to you to seek advice from your healthcare provider. The intent of this blog is to provide information on various medical conditions, medications, treatments, and procedures for your personal knowledge and to keep you informed of current health-related issues. It is not intended to be complete or exhaustive, nor is it a substitute for the advice of your physician. Should you or your family members have any specific medical problem, seek medical care promptly.

While your degree of disability may vary during the course of your life with MS, you may at times qualify for government assistance.

At www.benefits.gov you will find online access to government benefit and assistance programs as well as the tools to help you navigate the system.

The site's core function is the eligibility prescreening questionnaire or "Benefit Finder."

Answers to the questionnaire are used to evaluate a visitor's situation and compare it with the eligibility criteria for more than 1,000 federally-funded benefit and assistance programs. Each program description provides citizens with the next steps to apply for any benefit program of interest.

Disclaimer: 'MS Views and News' (MSVN), does not endorse any products or services found on this blog. It is up to you to seek advice from your healthcare provider. The intent of this blog is to provide information on various medical conditions, medications, treatments, and procedures for your personal knowledge and to keep you informed of current health-related issues. It is not intended to be complete or exhaustive, nor is it a substitute for the advice of your physician. Should you or your family members have any specific medical problem, seek medical care promptly.

Disclaimer: 'MS Views and News' (MSVN), does not endorse any products or services found on this blog. It is up to you to seek advice from your healthcare provider. The intent of this blog is to provide information on various medical conditions, medications, treatments, and procedures for your personal knowledge and to keep you informed of current health-related issues. It is not intended to be complete or exhaustive, nor is it a substitute for the advice of your physician. Should you or your family members have any specific medical problem, seek medical care promptly.

Irvine, Calif. — Environmental and inherited risk factors associated with multiple sclerosis – previously poorly understood and not known to be connected – converge to alter a critical cellular function linked to the chronic neurologic disease, researchers with the UC Irvine Multiple Sclerosis Research Center have discovered.

The findings, which appear in the online, open-access journal Nature Communications, suggest that a unifying mechanism may be responsible for multiple sclerosis and point to therapies personalized according to genetic factors.

"MS results from complex interactions between an individual's genetics and his or her environment," said study leader Dr. Michael Demetriou, a UCI neurologist and associate director of the Multiple Sclerosis Research Center. "Defining how these come together to induce the disease is critical for developing a cure. We've taken a giant first step toward understanding this."

Using blood samples from about 13,000 people, Demetriou and colleagues identified the way environmental factors – including metabolism and vitamin D3, obtained through either sunlight exposure or diet – interact with four genes (interleukin-7 receptor-alpha, interleukin-2 receptor-alpha, MGAT1 and CTLA-4) to affect how specific sugars are added to proteins regulating the disease.

Earlier work on mice by Demetriou revealed that changes in the addition of these specific sugars to proteins engender a spontaneous MS-like disease. They also found that N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), a dietary supplement and simple sugar related to glucosamine, is able to suppress this process.

The current research shows that both vitamin D3 and GlcNAc can reverse the effects of four human MS genetic factors and restore the normal addition of sugars to proteins. "This suggests that oral vitamin D3 and GlcNAc may serve as the first therapy for MS that directly targets an underlying defect promoting disease," Demetriou said.

Virtually all proteins on the surface of cells, including immune and nervous system cells, are modified with complex sugars of variable lengths and composition. This adds information to proteins separate from that directly defined by the genome. The sugars interact with specific sugar-binding proteins on the cell, forming a molecular lattice that controls the clustering, signaling and surface expression of critical receptors and transporters, such as the T cell receptor and CTLA-4. Reducing sugar modification weakens the lattice and enhances growth and activity of immune system T cells in such a way that they increase neural degeneration – a hallmark of MS.

Production of the complex sugars is regulated by both metabolic and enzymatic functions, the latter altered by genetic MS risk factors and vitamin D3. Demetriou pointed out that the MGAT1 genetic variant linked to MS increases or decreases the sugars attached to proteins depending on metabolism – one possible explanation for why people with the same genetic risk factor may or may not develop MS.

Disclaimer: 'MS Views and News' (MSVN), does not endorse any products or services found on this blog. It is up to you to seek advice from your healthcare provider. The intent of this blog is to provide information on various medical conditions, medications, treatments, and procedures for your personal knowledge and to keep you informed of current health-related issues. It is not intended to be complete or exhaustive, nor is it a substitute for the advice of your physician. Should you or your family members have any specific medical problem, seek medical care promptly.

SYMPTOMS of MS

In multiple sclerosis , damage to the myelin in the central nervous system (CNS), and to the nerve fibers themselves, interferes with the transmission of nerve signals between the brain and spinal cord and other parts of the body. This disruption of nerve signals produces the primary symptoms of MS, which vary depending on where the damage has occurred.

Over the course of the disease, some symptoms will come and go, while others may be more lasting.

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"Stu's Views & MS News" / 'MS Views and News' DOES NOT endorse any products or services found on this blog. It is up to you to seek advice from your healthcare provider. The intent of this blog is to provide information on various medical conditions, medications, treatments, and procedures for your personal knowledge and to keep you informed of current health-related issues. It is not intended to be complete or exhaustive, nor is it a substitute for the advice of your physician. Should you or your family members have any specific medical problem, seek medical care promptly

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